How to Send More Than 3 Invoice Reminders in QuickBooks

If you've set up automatic invoice reminders in QuickBooks Online and found they stop after three, you're not doing anything wrong. Three is the limit. For a customer who pays 90 days late, three reminders spread around the due date simply run out — and you're back to chasing by hand.

Here's how the built-in reminders work, how to get the most out of them, and what your options are when three isn't enough.

Setting up automatic reminders in QuickBooks Online

QuickBooks lets you schedule up to three automatic reminders per invoice:

1. Select Settings (the gear icon), then Account and settings.
2. Open the Sales tab.
3. Find the Reminders section and select the edit (pencil) icon.
4. Turn on Automatic invoice reminders.
5. For each reminder, choose a number of days and whether it sends before or after the due date. You can schedule reminders up to 90 days either side of the due date.
6. Edit the email subject and message for each one — keep the word "reminder" in the subject line.
7. Save, then Done.

A sensible three-reminder setup looks like: one a few days before the due date, one on the day it falls overdue, and one a week or two after.

Why three is often not enough

Late payment in the UK is not a rare event. Most business invoices are paid after their due date, and for some sectors the average stretches well beyond 60 days. A customer who is 90 days late has sailed past all three of your reminders — and after the third, QuickBooks goes quiet. Everything after that is manual: you remembering, you writing the email, you tracking who's been chased and who hasn't.

That's the gap. The reminders handle the polite early nudges well. They don't handle the persistent, months-long follow-up that actually recovers a stubborn debt.

What you can do about it

A few options, depending on how much manual work you're willing to absorb:

• Send manual reminders after the third. QuickBooks lets you send a reminder by hand from the invoice itself. It works, but you have to remember to do it, every time, for every overdue invoice.
• Escalate the tone. For genuinely overdue business invoices, your later chases can reference the interest you're legally entitled to under the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998 — 8% over the Bank of England base rate, plus fixed compensation. (More on that in our guide to charging interest on late invoices.)
• Use a dedicated chasing layer. Tools built specifically for chasing don't cap the number of follow-ups.

Where Execore fits

Execore sits on top of whatever you already invoice from — QuickBooks included — and chases an invoice until it's actually paid, with no three-reminder ceiling. You Bcc your Execore address when you invoice, and each follow-up opens pre-written in your own mailbox for you to send in a tap, with the statutory interest already worked out. It doesn't replace QuickBooks; it does the part QuickBooks leaves to you after the third reminder.